The 1980s were one of the worst decades for General Motors. Market share tumbled from 46% in 1980 to 35% by the decade’s end. The GM X-Body was launched for 1980 and is regarded as GM’s Deadliest Sin. Fortune featured a cover story on how rampant badge engineering had become. The 1990s would see many more mistakes being made. The decade, though, started with hope. That hope came in the form of an over-budget, heavily delayed project: the GM-10 cars.
It’s easy to look back at the indefatigable rise of the Camry and Accord and scoff at the foolish domestic automakers and their inability to do battle. The GM-10 cars had a lot riding on them at the time. First, they had to once again prove GM could differentiate its cars between model lineups. Secondly, they had to prove GM was capable of going up against the mid-size juggernauts of Accord and Camry, as well as the Taurus.
The GM-10 project dated all the way back to 1982, just as GM was crafting the new FWD A-Body intermediates out of the much-maligned X-Bodies. Corporate reorganizations conspired to delay the cars; the initial coupes arrived two years later than expected, and the sedans even later. The real issue was the lack of a dedicated team and resources.
Despite GM allocating $7 billion to the project – more than double the expenditure for the 1986 Taurus, and almost quintuple the Chrysler LH cars’ investment – the project was shoddily executed. In Paul Ingrassia and Joseph White’s excellent book Comeback, the GM-10 development saga was described in sordid detail. Robert Dorn, Pontiac’s chief engineer, was appointed the GM-10 coordinator–but what good is a head without a body? Dorn had no dedicated team, and no authority over any engineers. He worked out of Chevrolet’s engineering department, next to engineers over whom he had no power.
The hapless Dorn, being a coordinator and not a manager, was forced to consult all four divisions with any proposals. He then had to request a design from the GM Styling Center. Then, he had to go to Fisher Body and component makers for specifications. The 1984 GM reorganization further interrupted everything, causing the GM-10s to fall further behind schedule. The debut of the Taurus saw a hasty 1985 exterior revision of the upcoming cars. Dorn quit in 1985, probably out of frustration and well before the first GM-10s rolled out of their factories.
Yes, one can easily argue that the days of GM’s market dominance were in the past and they should’ve focussed more on developing one good mid-size nameplate and marketing the hell out of it rather than spreading resources across four nameplates. But we have the benefit of hindsight, and GM’s slip in market share was something they believed could be corrected. In fact, they believed the GM-10s alone could account for 21% of the total U.S. car market. By 1986 though, GM had revised down projections from 1.6 million units to just 1 million annually.
Still, GM was so committed to its four separate GM-10 lines that it assigned an assembly plant to each. It was a departure from the standard practice of assembling different lines of the same platform in the same factory. That practice was desirable if, for instance, the public found an Oldsmobile’s design too challenging and didn’t buy it; that way, the company could just decrease the production volume of the Olds and increase that of the related Pontiac. GM was sure, though, there would be enough demand for each to warrant separate plants. Remarkably, the original plan actually called for three additional factories for the GM-10s!
Each of the four GM-10s had distinct sheetmetal, interiors and positioning. The Cutlass Supreme was aimed at import buyers, and had sleek, clean lines. The Grand Prix was seen as the performance option, with racier looks inside and out. The Regal was the more traditional premium choice, with a waterfall grille and a lot of wood grain and chrome. Finally, the late-arriving Lumina was the all-American choice, an unpretentious domestic mid-sizer.
The differences were more than skin deep. The Regal was the only one to receive Buick’s 3800 V6, Chevy the only one to receive the Iron Duke, and the Grand Prix the only one to receive the short-lived turbocharged 3.1 V6.
The aged RWD G-Bodies these new cars replaced had been all pretty much the same car. You could get a basic model, a Broughamantic model and a sporty model in each lineup. The only really unique aspect amongst them was the Regal’s available T-Type and Grand National turbos, although even Chevy briefly poached the turbo for its Monte Carlo. There was a Grand Prix Aeroback, but Chevy got one too. They were four slightly different looking cars positioned almost exactly the same.
There was still some overlap with the GM-10s: You could get a sporty Lumina in both wild-looking Z34 flavour or more sedate Euro trims, much like the designs of the Grand Prix and Cutlass Supreme, respectively. You could get an inexpensive Grand Prix or Cutlass Supreme with a four, albeit not the hoary old Iron Duke. And you could get a sporty Regal, with the GS trim returning. Still, GM had demonstrated a much stronger commitment to differentiation than they had in the Fortune cover A-Bodies.
The new generation of Regal attempted to retain existing Regal buyers, while also offering smoother, more aerodynamic styling. The sole initial powertrain was the venerable 2.8 V6 with a four-speed automatic. Power and torque were 125hp and 160 ft-lbs, respectively. Underneath, the Regal featured the GM-10’s new all-independent suspension with front struts and coil springs and rear struts on single trailing links. Dual lateral links were connected by a single transverse plastic leaf spring. It was a continuation of the FWD knowledge GM had developed with the FWD X, A and H-bodies.
The Regal’s wheelbase was 0.6 inches shorter than the outgoing RWD Regal, with a reduction in weight of 250 pounds and in length by 8.4 inches, but with only a few cubic feet of cabin space lost. That cabin featured a dash unique to the Regal, with wood grain applied liberally and a neat, traditional-style layout, although digital gauges were standard. A more rigid body also allowed for a cabin with less noise, vibration and harshness than its predecessor.
Fuel economy was also improved: 20/29mpg, up from 19/24mpg, on the base G-Body Regal V6. A slick drag coefficient of 0.31 definitely played a part in that. There were no high-performance options, though: Buick’s new “traditional premium” positioning spelled the end of souped-up Buicks like the Grand National and GNX. Even the available Gran Sport package, which featured firmer suspension tuning and 197/70R-15 GT+4 tires, had a plusher ride than the Grand Prix and Cutlass Supreme and less direct handling. The Gran Sport, though, did feature alloy wheels, black-out trim and other sporty visual tweaks.
The GM-10s’ launch was rocky. The Regal lineup, mystifyingly, was even later to receive a sedan than the others; it would come for 1991, a year later than the others. GM had launched the coupe earlier than the sedan, despite the objections of dealers, because of its history of strong-selling personal luxury coupe lines. The market was shifting, though, and the core consumers for intermediates were in their child-rearing years. At the time, Taurus didn’t offer a coupe, nor did Camry. GM probably should have seen it coming: Sedans represented only 38% of the total car market in 1980, but by 1988 they were at 56%.
Those family sedan buyers were also concerned about safety. Despite the availability of optional anti-lock brakes and standard four-wheel disc brakes, airbags were a no-show on the Regal equipment list until 1994. This was a puzzling omission, as even the moribund Dodge Diplomat had a standard driver’s airbag at the time of the Regal’s launch.
Still, the GM-10s were met with praise from critics. The Grand Prix received the most buzz, winning Motor Trend’s Car of the Year award for 1988. The Regal was regarded as a competitive offering, with a smooth, quiet ride, competent handling with little body roll, and a spacious interior. The only criticism was leveled at the 2.8 V6’s fairly low power output, especially considering the 3,200lb curb weight; 0-60 took around 11 seconds.
By the early 1990s, GM was suffering badly. They had the lowest profits per unit and the highest overhead. Between 1989 and 1993, GM recorded $18 billion in net losses. Buick was the third-best selling domestic make in the early 1990s, but overall volume was barely half of mid-1980s levels.
The GM-10s certainly didn’t add to GM’s profit margins. Blown-out development costs, including investment in new factory machinery and tooling for four factories, and slower sales would see GM lose as much as $1,800 on every GM-10 car it sold. GM shed mid-size market share, too. Between 1985 and 1992, GM’s share of the American mid-size market sunk from 59% to 34%, while Ford’s grew from 21% to 31%.
The Regal and its GM-10 counterparts required 50% more labor to build than a Taurus, too. GM Chairman Roger Smith had bet the farm on investing in a lot of new, modern, automated machinery, but it was ill-suited to the aging factories it was installed in and cost more to operate. Within a few years of the GM-10 launch, plant managers dumped a lot of the automated equipment. It was money down the drain.
Quality and reliability were patchy at first, too. Nine recalls were conducted for the first six months’ worth of GM-10 cars. There were defects with brakes failing, hoods flying open and wheels falling off. Quality and reliability were improved, but the Accord and Camry were still showing the domestics how to build a solid, well-finished intermediate.
GM had to recoup their losses, and the GM-10s went under the knife. The Regal’s unique, traditionally-styled interior was replaced in 1995 with one of the parts-bin, molded-plastic messes that were, sadly, becoming the norm at GM. Wood grain was gone from the dash and door panels. Outside, chrome brightwork was removed. Other visual tweaks rendered the Regal completely anonymous; perhaps more modern, yes, but also far more bland.
There were some mechanical improvements, though, during the Regal’s reign. Its sophomore year saw the 2.8 V6 replaced with a 3.1, with an extra 15hp and 20 ft-lbs of torque. This 3.1 would gain 20hp and 5 ft-lbs in 1994 as well. In 1990, the Buick 3.8 was added as an upgrade engine, exclusive to the Regal, with 170hp and 220 ft-lbs; this would increase by 30hp and 5 ft-lbs for this generation’s final year.
Still, GM seemed to shoot itself in the foot by continuing to sell the dated 1982-vintage A-Body Century. Buick effectively had two mid-sized offerings, and the Century – which certainly appealed to older buyers – had a list price $2-3k lower than the Regal. While the Century was undoubtedly more profitable, it provided senseless showroom competition.
Debut year sales pipped the previous year’s G-Body sales, with almost 130k units produced. Production would slide, though, to 88k units in the Regal’s sophomore year, and down further to 54k units for 1990. Unit production would then seesaw between the 80k range and over 100k. Contrary to GM’s initial predictions, the Regal coupe would represent a paltry 18% of total Regal production by the end. More tellingly, though, the decrepit Century would outsell the Regal from 1992-95.
Every single photo in this article of a Regal on the street is one I photographed over a year in NYC. GM-10 Regals and Olds Cutlass Cieras are by far the most common pre-1995 cars in the city. The working theory behind Buick and Oldsmobiles being more common today than, say, contemporary Chevrolets, is that they initially had older owners who drove their cars less and took better care of them. That seems logical. Their ubiquity also suggests that these Regals were pretty reliable cars.
Overall, the Regal was afflicted by the same problem as the other GM-10s. Had they launched on time, they may well have caused more of a stir. Had a sedan been available from the start, they would have better met market demands. They offered a refined application of GM’s FWD engineering and modern styling, as well as plenty of engine and trim choices. They also offered the most visual differentiation ever between four separate GM lines. Sadly, though, the GM-10 story was one of time and money mismanaged.
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Curbside Classic: 1994 Chrysler LeBaron
I’m curious about the body integrity of those early W-Body. W-Body has distinctive bars in the engine bay for better structure, but from my experience in H-Body, the body still feels too flexible despite a bar between suspension towers. Could the trick be better when the bar was designed differently?
Anyway, we get many cheap reliable W-Bodies after GM finally salvages the platform after too late.
My opinion is about these North-American GM cars that all these have timeless and very advanced appearance till nowadays. Then their design was inevitably ahead of its time. That’s a kind of opinion from euro point of view…
The Regal sedan looks particularly attractive and timeless – from an Aussie point of view.
The Regal coupe’s roofline is unfortunate. What was it with GM and wacky rear roof treatments?
The Pontiacs look good, especially the curve-under in the doors – probably from the lower-body applique, but it looks good.
The Chevys look bland, like they let the janitor design it – someone expected that to sell?
And was there an Olds? I must have missed it.
Overall, no wonder Honda and Toyota did so well.
Who was in charge of GM styling in this era? Anybody?
The Olds looks like an older generation Mazda 929/Cosmo coupe….
Irv Rybicki. After, Chuck Jordan?
Irv Rybicki thought these looked good? After the designs of Earl and Mitchell?
The first and second generation Regals were the only ones I ever cared for. Especially the second generation, which included the Grand National and the GNX.
There’s a similar effect that went on at BL,a rush to FWD,badge engineering,near identical cars slugging it out in the showroom,not enough money for development,poor build quality and cars rushed into production before faults were ironed out.I’d ignored these cars when new as the only American cars in production that I liked were the Mustang,Camaro and Firebird
I remember these coming to Israel back then; I thought they looked rather flash and modern at the time but – like the Xs – they seemed to deteriorate much faster than their predecesors from the 60s or even the 70s. After 4-5 years the paint looked very tired and bits fell of the interior and exterior. You do see them there from time to time which seems to confirm the assumption made in the article about their ultimate reliability, but those were the cars that lost that segment to the Germans over there… In Austria they are like unicorns:)
That’s a good point, many of these cars were afflicted with failing paint. As I recall, GM had to change the paint formulas for environmental reasons and it took longer than it should have to make the new formulas work. GM wasn’t the only one afflicted.
Ford even had a recall/extended warranty on certain paint colors back then due to extreme fading and peeling. IIRC that was when waterborne paints were first put into use.
A worldwide problem? Holdens had similar paint issues in these years too, especially the light blue/green metallic, and silver too. You almost never see one with a good clear coat.
Was this when the industry went to water based paint? Holden had real fade problems at this time.
I think it was. Holdens stand out in my memory for paint issues back then.
In 1992 I was able as an adult to purchase my first brand new car and suffice to say these fugly GM cars were not even on my radar, every time that I saw one I just thought to myself why would anyone buy these ugly, ill designed cars. Oh and I bought a Ford Mustang that was an awesome car that I had no problems with at all……..
Well written. The Pontiac Grand Prix coupe was exciting when it debuted — good looking and a reasonable effort for its time. But the Buick, yecch.
I concur, the GP was by far the looker of the bunch, tho I didn’t think the Cutlass was too bad. The Lumina and the Regal? Blech.
The article states that the Grand Prix and only the G-P got a turbocharged V6…..I must have missed that model? Both Chevy and Pontiac offered a “short-lived” twin OHC version of the Chevy V6 in the late 90s (2nd gen models).
My little sister bought a Regal coupe, used, even though she considered herself a “dyed in the wool” Chevy fan. She thought the car was pretty reliable, for the most part, but like many owners she was bothered by the “beer tap” door handles that broke too easily. The Regal replaced a 70 Malibu 2 door hardtop and was eventually replaced by a 2 door Chrysler Sebring.
It’s almost sad that GM so badly dropped the ball with these cars. They would have been better off upgrading the old RWD sporty coupes and making over-upgrading the A-bodys. At the very least, dedicated factories for each car seems very extravagant….especially in light of today’s extremely flexible factories.
It would seem to be a case of “…if you build it they customers will surely buy it”, instead of Ford’s “build it and they will be so dazzled they will want to be the 1st on their street to own it.”
You missed it? Revell even had a model kit of it.
Before there was a Grand Prix GTP, there was the Turbo Grand Prix in ’89-’90 with an intercooled turbo version of the 3.1 V6. It was an ASC/McLaren conversion sold new through Pontiac dealers and came with lots of buttons, 2+2 seating, a HUD (!), and a Ribbed for Her Pleasure body kit.
I’m making fun of it, yes, but I actually think they’re really cool and wanted one badly when I was younger. IMO they’re also much better looking than the subsequent Pontiacs that followed in this mold. There was an STE Turbo sedan too, but it’s extremely rare.
BTW, as far as which one would I want to own? The Oldsmobile in sedan or coupe is the most appealing total package.
I always liked the Cutlass convertible. The roll-bar, which resulted from the decision not to relocate the B-pillar door handles, actually gave it a sportier appearance IMO.
Is it possible that there was a decade worse for GM than the eighties?
Nothing says the failed legacy of Roger Smith as GM’s CEO than the GM-10 project. Although not an outright disaster like the Vega or X-cars (cars which sullied GM’s reputation and turned many buyers away from GM cars for generations), the GM-10 squandered vast amounts of GM’s resources and reputation, and highlights how Smith (and the rest of GM’s upper management) might have been good bean-counters, but not very good managers of one of the US’ largest corporations.
The story goes that Smith visited Toyota’s automated assembly lines and was suitably impressed enough that he committed to adopting their system for the GM-10. Unfortunately, he didn’t understand or comprehend that Toyota’s process was accomplished over a long period of time where they carefully made incremental assembly line changes so that if something didn’t work out, the problem could be isolated and corrected, minimizing the economic impact,
Smith, OTOH, made immediate wholesale changes everywhere and all at once. His complete jump into brand-new GM-10 ‘lights out’ automated factories resulted in myriad unsolvable problems and ended up being a grossly expensive debacle as complete systems had to be overhauled until they would function properly. The most well-known examples were robots that spray painted each other and broke windshields and rear windows before they could be installed. It was all just another example of the typical and all too familiar GM good idea, but extremely poor execution.
Although the vehicles themselves weren’t technically failures, all the trouble and outright expense in getting them to market, combined with the underwhelming response from consumers, could be reason enough to consider the GM-10 cars as Deadly Sins. The project certainly seemed to hasten the march towards bankruptcy. Smith, to his credit, realized that drastic changes were needed at GM; he just wasn’t the guy for the task.
“Is it possible that there was a decade worse for GM than the eighties?’
No.
Most of them are really beautiful cars !
The article-feature-picture, got me thinking about my 1986 Honda Prelude…
(Only the profile !)
The design/look wasn’t the problem. It was the awful buildquality and low interior plastic quality/finish, and expences in production !
My dad test drove one of those Regals right around the time he bought his ’87 T-Bird. There was no contest; the T-Bird just felt like a better (and more powerful) car.
On the other hand, I went to school with a guy whose parents drove an early ’90s Regal sedan with a 3800, and that was not a bad car at all. It held up under his abuse, so it must have been a decent car.
Very good article and insight. I think had this car come a few years earlier, and especially if the sedan was available at its introduction, it wouldn’t have been so lackluster for its entire life. The sedan had modern looks in terms of styling, the squarer coupe not so much. The fact that GM kept these cars around for so long didn’t help it either.
With cars like this, now you know why I went to Chrysler in 1980 and stayed until 2004 when I bought my 2004 Impala. Still at GM, too with my 2012 Impala.
I sort of admired these cars from a distance for their exterior styling, but the rest left me cold, plus they were odd-sized, like the Ford Tempo. For us, the K-Car and its cousins were just right in those days.
Tempo odd sized ? It was the same as the Xs and the Ks give or take an inch or so.
I really liked the Grand Prix when it came out, the dash design was really neat–later I got a ride in a Lumina sedan and thought it was the most depressing car I had ever been in. When you look at the Cutlass sedan styling you can see were the Saturn sedans saved time by just copying the Olds.
I always thought it was the other way around. Oldsmobile was being set up (sometime during Saturn’s lifetime) as being the car you went to when you outgrew Saturn.
“This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.”
Ah yes, the ad campaign that screamed at the top of its lungs, “We’re dead. Bury us already.” I found the television ad with Ringo Starr and his daughter particularly pathetic.
I often wonder if the agency that dreamed it up is still in business.
Shame, what I want(ed) was my grandfather’s Oldsmobile. ’69 Cutlass S two door hardtop, dark green. Very nice.
“This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.”
No. Your father’s Oldsmobile was a lot better!
I started my interest in GM because of my Father’s Oldsmobile: 84 Ciera 4 door.
These are all great high-schooler cars.
Only because high schoolers are not picky, discerning owners and will drive anything that will move under it’s own power.
That’s exactly what I mean. Damning with faint praise.
… now that can’t be right – as any European knows, school kids in America drive 55 Chevs with 500 hp motors.
Powered by FREEDOM, of course.
Don’t we foreigners have great stereotypes of Americans? They’re quite different if you actually meet one, of course. 😉
In 1996 I sold my 92 Regal Limited to my neighbor across the street. He insisted that the Custom was a higher trim. I had been banned from getting the brakes done for free after 3
times at my local NTB store. We concluded the transaction, 5000.00. It is now for sale since he purchased a Subi Legacy last month. The Regal has less than 200,000 mi a droopy headliner and new front frame chassis bolts for the front end member.
Had planned on buying my mother’s ’89 Regal GS to replace my bride’s Tempo in 1994. Dad shocked everyone by giving it to us as a wedding present – mom asked how much he’d had to drink at the reception – dad never gave anything away.
I liked the looks of the Buick. At the time I actually liked the looks of the Lumina more and seriously thought about buying a Z34 Lumina – glad I didn’t do that. The GS had “big” wheels on it with its performance tires, remember when 16″ wheels were thought of as big? I pretty much hated 80’s digital clusters, but I really liked the one on the Regal – I thought it was well done, reasonably attractive and functional.
In those days my bride was an itinerant symphony viola player and put LOTS of miles on a car. That Regal was such a step up from the Tempo she had been driving and I’d been fixing. She and her cohorts had more room and a better ride and I didn’t have to change water pumps anymore.
By the late 90’s the car fell victim to electrical gremlins in the power train control module and associated wiring that would render the 3.1 V6 inert at the most inopportune times – like in the middle of intersections. Car would get towed home, it track something down and hope I’d fixed it, curse that car. The other issue it has was with the rear caliper slides seizing up so the rear brakes were useless. I destroyed my hands multiple times working on those calipers – swore-off any vehicle with rear disk brakes for a decade. Curse the car some more. Wondering why I held onto it.
Than I’d get in it to test drive my work. Oh, it was a nice ride. I really enjoyed driving that car. Would have been nice if the Buick pseudo-bucket seats in it allowed you to sit in them more than on top of them…but it was a Buick after all so I guess GM felt it necessary to have grandparent-style seating.
When I received a call from my bride at 5:30 am on a Saturday morning telling me the Buick had died in the middle of a busy intersection in a city over 150 miles from home I decided it was time for that car to go. I called dad and woke him up, asked him what he was doing that day, then told him he wasn’t, that he was driving with me to Lima, Ohio, to drag that Buick back home one last time.
Perhaps it is needless to say that by the time we loaded up tools and such and drove all the way out there that Regal started up first try and ran great all the way home.
Didn’t matter, “For Sale” signs were on it the next day. Neighbor a few houses up bought it – I told him ALL the trouble I was having with it and he still bought it. I think it took a few months but his mechanic finally sorted out the electrical issues and he got several more years out of the car. Maybe throwing in the car’s shop manual helped – usually I kept those for my collection.
The Buick always looked good. Didn’t show any rust in the years it was in my family. I wasn’t sure how I felt about it not having air-bags, but I really would have liked it to have ABS. After buying my ’91 S10 Blazer I’d become a big believer in ABS.
Likely would have held onto the car a few more years – we’d just bought a house so I really didn’t want another big purchase – but it seemed I could never be sure that the problem I’d found and corrected actually fixing the issue…well, clearly I hadn’t – or more likely it was one thing in the harness after another. Who knows, but I was sick of dealing with it. Replaced the Regal with a ’94 Bonneville SSE – boy was that 3800 engine nice as was the rest of the car.
I just never liked these cars. The body design looked weird to me, and they committed the ultimate sin of being FWD. These seem to be the link between the traditional (and good looking to me) GM RWD cars, and today’s generic eggmobiles. Look at today’s Regal. It could be anything. You have to get close enough to read the nameplate. The early ’80s Regal body was gorgeous. I wish the huge failure of the X-body cars had sent GM back to RWD designs. I sometimes wonder if trucks and truck based SUVs sell so well because they are RWD.
These were not bad cars in hindsight but back when they first arrived they were a bit odd looking for the era. When they first came out, the auto industry was moving to make cars that looked like the Audi 100 and Ford Taurus. Aero style was the new way. These cars with their wedge shaped profiles seemed to be a step back into the early 1980’s.
By the time they were slightly restyled in order to look more aerodynamic and with the times, it was too late, nobody really gave a crap. Sadly these cars were a failure for GM even though they sold decently while they were made, because GM expected them to sell at a number that was really unrealistic and also expected to dethrone the Taurus as the best selling car in the USA. (a feat the well built and very attractive 92-96 Camry could not even do)
Mr. Stopford brings up a very good point, The 82-96 Century and Ciera while smaller cars then the W- Body cars, was just as roomy, was well built and sold for cheaper. For Buick this was a big puzzle as those folks looking for a value packed comfortable driving car ether bought a Century and saved money or ponied up a bit more and went home with a Lesabre.
In fact in one of the pictures Mr. Stopford shows in this posting, there is a shot of the back of a 2 door Buick Regal driving away from the camera. Directly side by side with this Regal and coming towards the camera is a 92-99 Buick Lesabre. The Lesabre was more expensive then the Regal and still sold loads more each year then the regal.
If I was a Buick customer in 1993, and I had only enough money to buy the Regal, I would choose a Century and keep the remaining money for a vacation or other things. Now if I could afford it, I would try to pony up the money for a Lesabre. In other words a Regal would not even be on my radar.
“Wedge shaped” but the British told us in the ’70s it was “the shape of things to come!” Guess it came and went.
Worked for me as I was never a fan of Ford’s aero look.
My sister and brother-in-law (at the time) had a ’89 Buick Regal (GM-10). I was not impressed. Wasn’t sure if the car was coming or going; the styling was soooo confusing. We also had several Pontiac Grand Prix (GM-10) in the office car pool, but nobody wanted to use them. The reputation of GM products was very bad at the time.
When it finally came time to replace the ’83 Cutlas Supreme (RWD), I moved to a ’97 Toyota Camry which provided many carefree (if not dull) miles of happy motoring.
My grandparents used to daily drive a Buick regal gs coupe. If it was parked in the sun for any amount of time it would heat up the gray imitation leather seats and the buckles and would be painful to the touch. It was replaced with a 200(?) grand am.
Boo-hoo, General Motors. They have a problem and they expect us tax payers to bail them out. Even a big corporation should have the morals to know how to take responsibility for their own actions. Except these idiots.
I actually supported the bailout to begin with. GM has been a major American automaker from the beginning, and they made a lot of promises back then, none of which came true. Being in the market for a new/used car, GM has absolutely nothing I want/can afford. They dropped the S10, which I considered a huge mistake. They were selling like crazy. Then they dropped the Colorado which replaced the S10. Now it’s back, but the standard cab base model (the only one I was interested in) is gone. Nor do they make a small 2 door, like the Cavalier or Cobalt. Not even a 2 door version of the Sonic. The S10, Cavalier, and Cobalt are now too old to be found used in decent condition. Looks like my next car may be Japanese
As far as GM 4 doors go, I really don’t have anything bad to say about the 1997-2003 Malibu. My 2001 has made it past 200,000 miles with very few problems. Their biggest mistake was using Dexcool. The newer Malibus seem to have quite a few quality issues though.
I never supported the bailout at all. Not for GM or Mopar. Both should have went under. You ether make profit and be a success or fail and go under. Business is business.
GM, Chrysler and certain members of congress got up and kept crying that the reason the Big Three were not making money and losing market share was because foreign cars were being sold in the USA for low prices and undercutting sales…….. Yet the real reason GM and Ma Mopar were on the rocks was shoddy made and uninteresting cars. When you have folks lining up at the local Toyota and Honda dealers willing to pay hundreds or thousands more on a Toyota and Honda then a comparable GM or Mopar product, then that should be a warning to the Big Three that people don’t want your products no matter how cheap they costs and they would rather walk/take a bus or pay more for a Toyota/Honda.
Democracy means (among other things) being free to buy whatever product meets your needs. And the people did. Just wasn’t made by GM. That’s not the people’s fault.
GM and Chrysler failed as automakers, but were bailed out as (UAW) jobs programs. Competency and product quality never really entered into the debate.
Those bailouts were a prime component of rescuing our economy. FIAT deal was good for the USA, and GM is ahead of payback schedule, and 1000s in the midwest kept their jobs.
Thank God that business dogma was run over by BHO Karma! Most of the bathwater was tossed, but the baby lives on…
My grandparents used to daily drive a Buick regal gs coupe. If it was parked in the sun for any amount of time it would heat up the gray imitation leather seats and the buckles would be painful to the touch. It was traded in for an early 2000’s grand am With an unfixable case of piston slap.
“Dorn had no dedicated team, and no authority over any engineers.”
Can’t get my head around this. I’m not GM-bashing – in fact, I think this is a problem that almost every organization might face, big or small.
Hey, we’ve “put you in charge” of a project that is “important” to “us.”*
*You have no power or resources and it’s not our problem when you fail. Go get ’em, tiger!
It almost sounds like they were trying to get rid of the guy. I think it’s exactly the sort of thing Henry Ford II did to Lee Iacocca when he wanted him gone. IIRC, he didn’t technically fire Lido, but stripped him of the presidency, gave him some menial managerial position, and shipped him off to sit in a small office in the sticks somewhere with no staff and no real responsibility.
I guess only ’80s GM execs know for sure, but would you put a guy you were trying to ditch in charge of such fundamental products as these? Let him do the Reatta or Fiero or something. 🙂
I drive an ’88 Reatta, and thank God for the folks who ran that! All teh stuff cited in this article are not present in that car, but it was semi hand-built and painted in the Craft Center so that is the difference…
Ford Siberia division!
This sounds like a perfect example of blowing up what had been working and replacing it with something that didn’t. From the beginning, GM cars were not really GM cars at all, but cars designed, built, sold and serviced by one of the automotive Divisions. The first car engineered by GM and not by one of the Divisions was the Vega.
Sadly, the sharing of parts, resources and factories really got underway in the 70s and continued apace. The Divisional engineering staffs got less and less to do, while management dreamed up “new ways” of designing and building cars and trucks. Worse, they had no idea what they were screwing up with these new structures.
This shift to pure corporate bean-counter management of all the divisions (i.e., the wholesale consolidation for short-term profit but the long-term detriment of the company) seemed to start with none other than Roger Smith’s predecessor, Thomas A. Murphy, who famously said, “GM is not in the business of making cars. GM is in the business of making money”.
As you mention, these cars had a redesign before they ever hit the market because of the impact of the Taurus (and Sable). I’ve always been curious as to what they were supposed to look like originally, as this design seemed very odd. That bulbous, airy greenhouse sat so oddly on the taught lower body- it always reminded me of the Super Guppy (for all you plane fans). And you could tell how mismanaged the project was by the ridiculous B-pillar door handles. How distracted were the stylists and engineers to focus on that detail at the expense of the overall design (and how limited was their planning foresight when it couldn’t be adapted to the convertible or sedan). Finally- I have to disagree that these cars were better differentiated among brands than the G Bodies or the A Bodies. Again, that shared B-Pillar door handle limited what they could do with the overall shape of the different cars- from a distance the overall shape is exactly the same.
No one has mentioned one of the nice features of the B-pillar door handles. When one did break (I broke one trying to open a frozen-shut door) they were VERY easy to replace and did not require any of the interior trip to be removed.
I never liked the styling, either, but it’s had to put my finger on why. I think maybe it’s that they knew they needed a jellybean shape to look contemporary, but they couldn’t help loading on a bunch of fussy details.
I remember a friend buying a GM-10 Cutlass Supreme. He was working for EDS when it was part of GM, so he was able to get employee pricing. We were both in our mid 20s, and the Olds just didn’t strike me as a young man’s car. Of all the cars GM made at the time, I just couldn’t understand why he chose that one. He loved it, though.
Agreed – they were too sharp-edged to be really jelly-bean shaped, but too jelly-bean to be sharp-edged. Like the greenhouse and the lower bodies were fighting each other.
Strangely some of my best cars were W-bodies. I have owned two 1994 Cutlass sedans one with the 3100 and the other with the 3.4 Twin Cam, a 1995 green 3.4 Twin Cam coupe, two 1996 Luminas one with 3100 and the other with 3.4 Twin Cam, 1998 Grand Prix 3800, 2000 Impala with 3800, 2008 Impala 2LT with 3900 and currently a 2013 Impala 3.6 DOHC global V6.
The early 1994’s had a few issues with the driver’s power window motor failing on the 3100 car an the loaded 3.4 1994 sedan had an A/C leak but little else went wrong. The 2 Luminas were stone dead reliable and a big upgrade from the 1994 cars. The 3.4 car needed a timing belt at 86K miles and while they were doing that I also had them install a new alternator as that is hard to swap out on these engines. No other issues with these other than routine service and brake jobs which I always do myself.
The 1998 Grand Prix was a mixed bag. It was very reliable but the 3800 started using antifreeze at about 120K and the strut mounts went bad soon after. The famous 3800 upper and lower gaskets were replaced and all was well up to around 200k when some rust started creeping in on the lower rockers and the 4T65 started shuddering when taking off which turned out to be the pressure control solenoid. I traded the car with this issue on a clean 2000 fully loaded base Impala with leather and 3800 and that car went over 171k with nary an issue other than a little looseness in the ISS. The 2008 Impala was also very reliable but needed an alternator at 100K and the driver’s side sway bar link kicked the bucket at around 75K. No other issues with that car and it’s 3900 remained oil and leak free well past 120K miles when I traded her for my current Red jewel 2013 LT with roof. No issues at all but it only has 36K miles so far and was just treated to a new set of rubber. For a car that is so hated on today I find it’s comfort, trunk space, ride and handling, features and the power of that 300 Hp 3.6 to make this car a tremendous value.
Alas this will be my last W-body car as no more will exist at my next trade in time. On the short list of replacements are the current style Epsilon Impala or a RWD Charger with the excellent 3.6/8 speed mill.
I’m like Gem in that I totally ignored these cars from the time they came on the market. Even though I had a 1976 Chevrolet Cheyenne pickup at the time, between the daily driver Hondas and the adult toy Mopar cars, GM cars weren’t even on the radar. My carpool driver had a Pontiac Grand Prix 2-door; I guess it was this generation since it had the b-pillar door handles. I learned a lot more about them reading this article than I’d ever known.
“I guess it was this generation since it had the b-pillar door handles.”
That kinda sums up the problem, then.
If it made this much impression on a car guy, Joe Q. Public wouldn’t even notice it!
Absolutely heartbreaking retrospective on the FWD GM-10 platform and former GM CEO Roger Smith’s wild miscalculations. The year of my own high school graduation (1992) bisected these cars’ production run, and up until perhaps my junior year of high school, I had aspirations of finding my own place in the US Auto Industry. It’s hard to read about how corporate mismanagement of the GM-10 project and poor execution and internal conflicts (at least, initially) contributed to a double-digit decrease in GM’s US market share, and consequently and very likely, jobs in my hometown of Flint, Michigan. Spilled milk, I know. I do remember liking the Regal coupe the best of the lot when these cars first came out.
My grandma had a brand new 4 door Regal 3.1 in 1993. I loved to drive that car. It was responsive, comfortable and very reliable. By the time it turned 11 in 2004, the trim inside was starting to fall apart and the paint retained the color well but it was flaking. That I attribute it to the tropical weather in Puerto Rico.
Then she got a 2002 Century and that car is still around.
My baby sis had a ’94 Grand Prix SE coupe with the widebody kit and the deep ‘lace’ alloys. Looked like it should’ve had some bite to go with the bark, but a relatively heavy car with that pathetic 3.1 turd V6 meant it was a slug. And that fisherprice craptastic interior was a joke. Such a disappointment…but what a pretty car.
Some good observations on the redundancy of the cars GM was offering. Seems like they should have kept the W body sedans as is (with better QC) for Pontiac and Chevy, since they had a bit more edgy styling…more in line with the demographic. The A bodies could’ve stayed at Buick/Olds since those were selling like crazy there. Again: Demographics. The W bodied Cutlass and GP coupes were definitely lookers. The Z34 and Regal…meh, not so much. The smart move woudlve been to update the old RWD G-body mechanicals and use them on the GP, as a more DD friendly alternative to the F bodies, while still keeping the performance edge. The Cutlass could’ve been the new Monte Carlo using the same G body mechanicals. Why bother with Olds or Buick coupes? They aren’t performance marques, and coupes should be focused to the enthusiast.
I wonder HOW many Accords, Altimas and Camrys were purchased after ownership of these GM debacles?
Did the Regal really have a CD of .31? I’d possibly expect that out of the GP or Lumina but the front end on the Regal coupe has a very upright nose, actually even a pronounced forward angle, which I can’t imagine is conducive to slipperiness. The 89 Thunderbird was .31 as I recall and it had a much more slippery looking greenhouse than the W bodies, not to mention the sloped/grilleless nose and extra overall length.
The reason to believe yes, CD has quite something to do with size. given the smaller size of Regal, it is possible. Lincoln Mark VIII has slightly higher CD of .33 comparing to Tbird despite being more slippery.
Reason to believe not, ’89 Cougar has CD of .37 and I think it mostly comes from the Lee Iacocca like rear window! The window could be just so noisy like how I experienced the ’93 Chrysler New Yorker Fifth Avenue!
The 87/88 Cougar had basically the same roofline but with a slightly slipperier .36 CD. No doubt that plays a roll though (although I’ve taken my 94 to triple digits many a time and I never experienced noise from the “Lee Iacocca rear window”, whatever that means), but the Buick front end is for sure more blocky than my Cougar or the Mark VIII. I can’t help but think that .31 figure originally came from the Grand Prix or Lumina.
EDIT: according to this site the Regal’s drag coefficient .36
http://www.automobile-catalog.com/car/1989/318740/buick_regal_limited_coupe_2_8l_v-6_automatic.html
I think .36 is pretty reasonable, especially comparing to ’87 ’88 Cougar and ’89 Cougar, as they are all formal mid-size coupe with fairly vertical rear window sharing similar profile. ( and I think the difference of .01 between different cougar comes from the narrower body of 87/88 )
For the noisy New Yorker, I just realized apart from how vertical the roof was, Lee Iacocca has his favorite landau roof there, well padded with a big shiny bar.
During these cars’ initial production run, I drove 1970s Chevys and Pontiacs. By the time I could afford them as used cars, I have long since switched to Toyotas and Subarus. At no point were these EVER on my radar.
GM still had delusions of grandeur when these were in the oven. Probably not unreasonably, as they had been the 800 pound gorilla of the industry for years.
The continuation of the A bodies was madness. Keeping the old car alongside the new car had been done a time or two by Ford and Chrysler, but the old car always assumed the bargain-basement and fleet role, while the nicely equipped retail versions were restricted to the new model. Think Maverick/Granada. But the much-cheaper A bodies were readily available at dealers with all of the broughamly trappings that still called to the AARP set. Most of these people would have bought the GM-10 offerings had the A bodies been limited to basic transportation. But no.
Like PFSM, I completely ignored these from the start and have been greatly educated today.
GM did that with the prior RWD A bodies the FWD A bodies were supposed to replace as well, instead of course they renamed them G bodies for the next 7 model years. GM really had a habit of giving votes of no confidence in their new products in the 80s-90s(although one can see why).
These things never appealed to me. I just never liked the styling. And a ride in a friends early 90s Buick version convinced me they were just more junk.
Grandpa must have been working at a Buick dealership in 1988, because I remember riding in the back of his demo Regal and being “wowed” by the ADVANCED! MODERN! DIGITAL! dashboard, pushbutton audio and ventilation controls, and (I believe) rear bucket-type seating.
Something that always stuck out to me with that car, too, was the way GM attached pliable vinyl armrests to the angled rear sill panels inside. It screamed CHEAP! even to a 12 year-old.
And, I’m blanking on this line – “Chevy the only one to receive the Iron Duke” – what 4-cylinder was offered on the Buick and Pontiac? The Quad-4?
The Quad 4 was used in the Pontiac and the Oldsmobile. 160 HP with Automatic and the 180 HP H.O version with manuals. Buick was V6 only.
Agree completely with the assessment here. These cars had some unique virtues and weren’t really “bad” in practical terms, but they ultimately came up way short. Pre-CC, I never knew that their development dated back to 1982, and I think that’s crucial to understanding them… they really seem to have been designed for a world where the Camry, Accord and Taurus don’t exist.
I appreciate a lot of the attention to detail that went into the early cars. You can see the effort there, misguided or not. Despite the MT COTY and generally positive reviews, I think even those cars were still considered a major letdown outside of GM diehard circles. Their brief moment in the sun was spoiled by an immense amount of pre-launch hype, and they just got sadder and sadder as the ’90s dragged on. There really wasn’t anywhere to go but down. The second generation W-body reboot was seriously low key, and they got respectable in the way that the Ciera and Century had been respectable before them, but I think this platform probably only survived so many years out of necessity rather than anything else.
I had a ’92 Tbird and followed it up with an ’89 Regal. While my ’95 was a pleasure to drive, the ’89 was a complete mess, with a goofy digital dash and ugly, peeling woodgrain.
The Fisher Price interior of the 95 looked positively streamlined compared to all that.
And a shout to the Ford – the Tbird was the nicest of all, when it was not in the shop. Poor Birdy.
UGLY AND UGLIER.
This generation of Buick Regal and Olds Cutlass was down right ugly. Like the 2 door versions weren’t ugly enough, they had to offer entirely different looking bodies on the 4 door versions. So there was actually double ugly cars in both divisions.
I never thought the profile of the greenhouse went with the body design. The door windows on the 4 door models looked too tall for the doors. The front of the fenders over the front wheels looked too small. They had too much tack on moldings. The interiors were downright weird.
I have to say the ugliest of the bunch was the Cutlass 4 door with the wrap around back windshield and horrible black door frames, made to look like the glass was wrapping around. The 3/4 view of this car was all wrong.
Yeah, it was actually sort of like a latter-day 1948 Studebaker ‘Is it coming or going?’ Champion Starlight.
The Regal Coupe was such an ugly, frumpy design.
I have one. I guess you got too have owned one to have liked them more.
I have to pipe in here…
In defence of the W-body cars, they really were a huge leap forward in many regards for GM, as well as from their G-body predecessor. The W-body’s Design, construction, quality, and technology were a ‘Night & Day” difference from the previous platform. I own 2 G-body cars as well as several W-body Lumina Z34 coupes, maintained them myself, so I can speak from experience here – I’ve been under, over, and through both platforms.
The W-Body was a relatively simple, affordable, extremely beefy platform that was well designed in my opinion.
There were many unique attributes that the Lumina Z34 had – flush mounted door handles mounted in the B pillar (Which created a unique clean side profile). The first GM V6 with DOHC architecture that would rev to 7000rpm, yet offer loads of low-end torque (which todays car designers have forgotten about). Door mounted seat belts which allowed effortless rear seat access for a coupe. Improved methods of sealing doors and minimizing wind noise, flush glass mounting, cartridge replaceable front struts that you can change from inside the engine compartment, transverse lightweight composite rear spring, and many others. The Z34 was easily one of the best looking cars built in the early 90’s that has held up well.
Historically, compared to what FWD’s ford and chrysler were offering in the late ’80s, which in hindsight was stodgily designed garbage that nobody will ever desire to collect or restore, and what the imports offered (quality but flat-lining styling that didn’t inspire), I think it’s fair to say the W-Body was more than decent at the time.
I feel Many of the complaints people post about vehicles are simply due to the fact that in reality, the majority of drivers, especially this IPOD generation, fail at looking after their cars and neglect them to the point of failure, then bash them. No car lasts forever when neglected.
BTW love the website, the opinions above are just that, my opinions.
You read my mind completely and I own an 80s GBODy Buick Regal Coupe.
There was an `89 Regal coupe with four bucket seats in my old Brooklyn neighborhood. It said “four seater” in small print on the rear quarter window. Always liked these, in coupe versions of course.
Great article William, I don’t know how I missed it till now, but glad you provided the link from the Pontiac article from today. Enjoyed the detailed history.
BTW: the Lumina was also offered with the 2.2 4 cyl from 93-94 which replaced the Iron Duke/Tech4.